Fish Joy, Toa Payoh

Was recommended the fish soup from Fish Joy (168 Lorong 1 Toa Payoh) and it turned out to be pretty good. Here's the bowl with 3 types of fishes; namely red grouper, batang and pomfret. On hindsight, I should have just gotten one type. Anyways, I liked it. Savoury, milky and adequately salted with a reasonably robust flavour. I wished they were more generous with those fried egg floss. Portions of the fish aren't what one would consider generous but looking beyond that, it was an enjoyable bowl.

Hon maguro hire, sanma and shake shioyaki from Nakajima Suisan

 

Haven't had the hon maguro from Nakajima Suisan (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十, 十一, 十二, 十三, 十四, 十五, 十六, 十七, 十八) in a while. There's jellyfish for their side dish today.

Those tuna fin were still the same unctuous and delicious morsels flavoured with little but salt and the char on their surface. 

Topped my teishoku with an additional sanma. Love those bitter sweet innards in the fish.

While I generally don't do salmon much, I even thought their shake shioyaki was delicious.

All at the price point to quality ratio that's still hard to beat.

Uncle & Auntie Family Restaurant, Race Course Road

We found an easier to reach branch of Mr. Uncle & Auntie Kitchen called Uncle & Auntie Family Restaurant (24 Race Course Road, tel : +65 9757 4400) a couple of minutes from Little India station. They share the same gaudy pink/purple lighting that look...Slaanesh-y. 

Mango lassi. Decent.

Pretty impressed by the deliciously savoury garlicky batter for their Prawn 65. These were freshly fried so they were piping hot and crunchy with a bit of meatiness inside. 

Something was amiss from their sardine and ikan bilis satti sorru which I couldn't put my finger to until much later. It was missing the hard boiled egg which their shop at Norris Road included. There was also less sardine in it. Those aside, the curried claypot rice was still delicious.

There was an astounding variety of briyani on the menu.

The paneer butter briyani looked good on the menu. But we were all deceived.

While the rice was delicious, this wasn't what we expected at all. This was just paneer butter masala ladled over said rice. I suspect that they probably use the same briyani base for any type of briyani that is ordered.

Not a fan of their gobi manchurian. Some of the cauliflower were too greasy and soggy.

Had a hot glass of masala badam milk which was nice. While it was sweeter than what I normally prefer, I couldn't say that I didn't enjoy it.

Samosas were pretty tasty. The skins were more bread-y textured than usual but that's no deal breaker.

The insides were curried vegetables, onions and potatoes.

Masala tea's okay, not outstanding.

Revisiting Quentin's

Came back to try more of the food at Quentin's.

That's the pasteis de bacalhau - deep fried salt cod & potato fritters. Nicely browned crisp shell with piping hot insides. These are like the better version of Birds Eye Fish Fingers. 😅 

Was curious about their dry laksa which turned out to be pretty similar to the Peranakan variety. This one was a bit more sweet than savoury but was otherwise, very recognizeable from the coconut and shrimp infusion in the rempah. That and those flakes of dried laksa leaves.

Dry mee siam was sweet and tangy. Seems that the ratio of the ingredients in their rempahs favours sweetness which is a little bit more than I like. There's a mellow quality in the sweet tanginess of some mee siam that I've enjoyed which I don't detect here. Between this and the laksa, I prefer the latter. 

Loved this black ink calamari dish. The broth was flavoured with the ink and garlic - thin enough to drink like soup and sufficient flavourful to be gravy for rice.

Quentin's kueh bingka was a pleasant curiosity. They appear to be a derivative of the more commonly found bingka ubi. These were less dense and in spite of the name, were more cake than kueh. Aside from the bits of tapioca one could detect, the rest of it was pretty much a butter cake. I like this.

Tenya, Orchard Central

Tenya from Asakusa set up stall more than a couple of years ago. They were marketed as the most successful tendon chain restaurants in Japan. What's new right? So many superlatives with the brands we bring in that there's no longer allure. Not to mention that many of them have diluted themselves. I never bothered previously because just another brand from Japan doesn't necessarily equate to quality anymore. 

Which was why this was my first visit. 😅  Took me a while also because I'm not a big tempura person in general. This was the shop at Orchard Central (#B1-01 Orchard Central, 181 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6509 6838)

Got their aonori tendon teishoku with the spicy cold udon. There's a prawn, piece of salmon and a Hiroshima oyster with some vegetables in the nori batter. The oyster was juicy and delicious. Definitely getting some seaweed flavour from the batter as well. Not bad tempura as a whole if I might say so.  

Pretty tasty spicy cold udon. The noodles were salty, spicy and shrimpy from the sakura ebi and chilli, paired with varied textures from the toppings. This might be the other tempura shop I don' mind coming back to aside from Ginza Tendon Itsuki or Tenjin. 

And Tenshin of course.

Revisiting Lao Huo Tang (老火汤)

Back at Lao Huo Tang trying more of their soups and dishes.

Pork tripe and ginko nut soup (养生腐竹猪肚汤) - for some reasons I had been expecting this to be very peppery until I re-read the menu. They did not mention pepper. Must have been because of the tripe which I normally associate with being cooked in a peppery broth or I've been thinking of the one at 藝 yì by Jereme Leung. No pepper for this one. Tripe was tender and chewy. Not a bad soup. 

What I did not anticipate and was pleasantly surprised by from the their lotus root soup with pork ribs and peanut (养颜莲藕花生排骨汤) were the dried cuttlefish that was used. This added plentiful umami. Tasted a lot better than I had imagined of what I thought would be a boring lotus root soup.

Decent fried egg with sliced bitter gourd there.

This was steamed chicken with mushrooms and lup cheong. I was thinking of this rendition when I ordered it. Not exactly in the same leagues but I don't mind eating this again. The main ingredients along with the goji berries and light soy sauce coalesced together nicely through the steaming.